Earlier this week I went to a yoga studio and met with the owner. We hit it off right away, and I gave her what I call the Soft Yes during our conversation. I loved the studio and thought it would be cool to teach some classes there. Before I left, we talked about possible holes I might be able to fill in the schedule. We didn’t talk about pay. I just figured that conversation would take place through email or something before she invited me to join the team. Instead, the owner added me to the website that very day and left a voicemail for me the next day saying she had put me on the schedule for Monday. Three days away!

I didn’t say, “yes, I’m ready to do this,” but I also didn’t give the owner any reason to think I wasn’t going to commit. I talked with Patrick (with whom I co-own Yoga Garden) and explained what had happened. We decided that it didn’t make much sense for me to commit to a new studio while I still have obligations to the studio in Japan. Creating relationships with students takes time–schedule a year, at least, to get to know your students thoroughly. Planning to teach a class for a month would be just long enough to begin to establish trust.

So, I called the owner the next day and let her know I wouldn’t be joining her studio. When she was about to hang up the phone she said, “well, I’m just going to take you off the website right now then, bye.” Click. Suffice it to say, I hung up feeling low and bummed I had let someone down.

Honne & Tatemae in Japanese Culture

In Japan, there are two concepts to sum up what happened here (Japanese culture otaku may fume now because I’m generalizing–remember that I preview all comments). One is tatemae which means how things look/seem on the surface–what you show the world. The other is honne–the real truth of the situation. For instance, if I ask a student if she is comfortable in a yoga position she might say she is (tatemae) but when I ask her if she can breathe and she says “not really, no” (honne) the real truth surfaces.*

In the West we might view these two things as mutually exclusive. Or we might view tatemae as lying. It’s not seen that way in Japan. In Japan, it leads to harmony, team work and things getting done even when the going gets unpleasant. I adopted it without knowing it while I was there. I think I did it to curb what was sometimes an overly aggressive approach to situations, it helped both parties save face. Now, I still do it, even though it’s less assertive and seems passive aggressive. For me, it’s about intention.

When I give a Soft Yes I’m doing so to keep the conversation moving along, to open doors and get more insight into a situation. I’m not saying Yes Forever, but neither am I saying Definitely Not. If you do this too, you’ll know what I mean. Part of it is my real desire to preserve the wa of things, that is, keep interactions pleasant and smooth where I can.

Sometimes wanting to preserve harmony can lead to hurt feelings when honne comes home to roost (as it inevitably does, for me at least). It’s times like those that you might wish that you’d given a Gentle No instead of a Soft Yes. I still have some work to do on that one.

*A really succinct & helpful explanation of the concepts of “honne” and “tatemae”